The steam screw JOHN B. COWLE was a vessel with a gross tonnage of 4731 tons, built in 1902 in Port Huron, Michigan. She had a home port in Cleveland, Ohio, and her dimensions were 420.0 feet in length, 50.2 feet in width, and 24.0 feet in depth. The vessel had a crew of 21 and had an indicated horsepower of 2,100.
On July 12, 1909, the JOHN B. COWLE was involved in a collision with the steam screw ISAAC M. SCOTT at Whitefish Point, Michigan, on Lake Michigan. The collision resulted in the loss of 14 lives out of the 24 persons on board the JOHN B. COWLE.
The names of some of the crew members reported to have been lost in the accident are as follows: John McKernain, engineer from Brooklyn; Edward Morin, second engineer from Buffalo; Wilfred Emerson, wheelsman from Superior, Wisconsin; A. J. Patton, oiler from Adams, New York; Seymour Higgs, fireman from Belleville, New York; Walter Woodward, oiler from Adams, New York; James Franklin, fireman from Adams, New York; John Lane, deckhand from Adams, New York; and several other crew members whose names were not provided in the report.
The JOHN B. COWLE was owned by members of the Lake Carriers’ Association, and she had sailed from Buffalo with a cargo of coal on her return trip down the lakes before the collision occurred.
